Santos CSG flaring on the Pilliga makes a mockery of 'total' fire ban

With the Pilliga Forest burning and a total fire ban in place, Santo continued to flare into the open air (Image supplied)

Did you know that Santos and all gas companies are not only allowed to flare CSG well during total fire bans — but that they actually do flare them at these hazardous times, putting whole communities at risk. Lachlan Barker reports.

Now this is hardly ideal either, just look at the tremendous heat coming off this container. Clearly, it’s a hazard itself. Shipping containers, which is what is used here are, of course, very strong objects, but repeated flaring inside one is not what it they were engineered for, so a seam failing and the canister blowing is not out of the question.

So why does AGL at Gloucester do their flaring in an enclosed container, while Santos do it in the open?

Coal seam gas operations often have to flare (or burn) gas for operational and safety reasons. This is the case for Santos’ operations in the Pilliga.

As part of the project application, the coal seam gas operator will propose either an open or closed flare depending on a range of factors, including noise, luminosity, visual impact, heat radiation, near-by sensitive receptors and the expected gas flow rates. The decision on the most suitable flare type is the responsibility of the consent body and is part of the project approval.

Under the Rural Fires Act, the operation of flares by gas exploration facilities (and other facilities) is exempted from the total fire ban provisions.

However, the operator of the flare is expected to implement a range of safety measures, including establishing and maintaining a fuel free buffer around the flare and fencing the buffer area.

To which I would have thought that having someone monitoring the flame 24-7 would have been part of the safety measures. However, if that is the case then the EPA didn’t mention it, or Santos willfully ignore this most obvious of safety measures.

What’s more – and as usual – the EPA didn’t answer the question I had asked; why do AGL flare enclosed, while Santos flare in the open? So I will tell you what I think the answer is.

AGL flare enclosed because there are more people around to see it. Flaring is a clear and present indicator of the dangers involved with living near a gas field. All the smoke and toxics that come from a flare are hidden from view by publicity conscious AGL.

However, on the Pilliga, Santos don’t bother to enclose their flare as they figure there is no one around to see it. Indeed, they would have been right except for the actions of forest protectors like Derek and Ted.

This Santos flaring is clearly an extraordinary risk to the people, environment and farmland of north-west NSW.

The exemption provided to the gas industry by the collusive NSW Government makes having a total fire ban completely worthless.

Exemptions shouldn’t do this; exemptions are there for low-risk activities.

To give you an example, the RFS website lists how to have a few friends round for a barby in the summer if you are under total fire ban conditions:

I think you can see the hypocrisy (if that’s the word) I’m getting at here. To have a tiny gas flame in your backyard, you have to have it under direct control of responsible adult and continuous water nearby.

Yet Santos on the Pilliga with government say so is allowed to have an open ten metre high flame burning without any observation by the company.

Santos’s flame is a real risk; your bbq in the back yard is nothing like.

So I contacted the NSW Greens Rural Fire Service spokesperson Jeremy Buckingham and asked what he thought of this.

He said:

Santos flaring in the Pilliga, when a total fire ban is in place, is a farce which puts people and property in the region at significant risk.

These issues were raised in the Parliamentary inquiry into CSG in 2011 and the government has yet to come up with a rational response to this foreseeable bushfire risk.

On severe fire risk days, farmers are told to cease harvesting activities and machinery use, but Santos can get away with an open flame in the middle of the bush.

As for open flaring during bushfire season, Buckingham ends with a perfectly simple message:

‘This is a recipe for disaster.’

CSG is an unacceptable risk to Australia’s environment on just so many areas: groundwater, air pollution, salt disposal, loss of farmland, homes unlivable due to fumes and of course bush fire risk.

CSG is an industry that Australia does not need. There is no gas shortage, no will be, in the eastern states, as the gas companies keep trying to tell us.

The risks to life and land have been unacceptable from the start.

It is time to end this insane gas experiment in Australia’s increasingly desiccated landscape.